Just Gravy

[Biscuits and Gravy]

“If I could make a livin’ outta lovin’ you, I’d be a millionaire in a week or two.” - Clay Walker

As Suo mentioned in his journal, on page 34 (mmhmm) of his life we got engaged. I’m amazed. Amazed by him. Amazed by life. Amazed by all of the love and connection and support surrounding us. I feel very fortunate to love (and have that love be reciprocated by!) such a partner. Beyond all of the gooeyness, I feel this absolute contentment at being on the same page, same paragraph, same line, same word as my partner, and I know that if and when our foci do not align, we can easily communicate with, understand, and respect one another.

With marriage comes a redesign of the future. With respect to finances, we are keeping everything separate, but planning together. Married filing jointly, we make a wild amount of money, and sometimes lament that we could FIRE in a short amount of time sans our 5 highly-variable, high-expense responsibilities (aka, our wonderful children, whose ages range from 4-18). We’ll have an inflection point in about 4 years to potentially redesign our lives, but until then we’ll both be working full time and saving as much as possible.

For my side of things, if I keep maxing out my TSP, I’ll have about $240k in there in 4 years. If I stop contributing at that point, by the time I’m 59 it will have grown to anywhere between $530k (assuming 4% growth) or $1.6mil (assuming 10%). For my lifestyle inclinations and aspirations, that is more than enough, and I don’t think I’ll feel the need to overfill this particular bucket past 2027. Starting at age 62, my pension of about $500/month would also kick in.

In 4 years, I’ll be 39 and a half, which would leave me with 20 years until I can access my TSP. I like working, just not 40+ hours a week, so my preference would be to find part-time work I enjoy, and which would also pay my bills between the ages of 39-59. Based off of the past few years, I’m betting my expenses will be about $30-35k a year while the kids are at home. We’ll see. It’s kinda pointless to plan that far in advance (with kids), but it is a fun exercise. Over the next year or so, I’m going to explore writing as my potential Semi-ERE job while I still have the safety net of my current job.

Other than, y’know, that tiny bit of news about wedding bells, school is starting up and it makes me reflect on how quickly my kids have grown. I really, really like my kids, in addition to loving them, and I am looking forward to watching them grow up. DS4 has gotten his temper tantrums under control, and he hasn’t flown off the handle in about a month. When he gets overly emotional, he tells himself to “breathe,” then he counts to ten, then he tells us “I am feeling ____ because ____.” It’s really quite remarkable. DD5 is perfection incarnate, but she is small, so small (her pediatrician estimated she’ll only be 5’1”), and I worry too much about her and how she will survive this world. Jiu jitsu? Krav maga? I dunno.

Life is great and I’m wishing everyone the best. I feel like I took a 10-year detour after finding ERE, but now I’m finally back on the path.

[bostonimproper]

Congratulations to you and Suo!

[Laura Ingalls]

Did the cook yourself while biking through the cornfields happen?

It was a very warm week.

[suomalainen]

Jiu jitsu? Krav maga? I dunno.

Smith & Wesson. The Texas WayTM

[chenda]

so small (her pediatrician estimated she’ll only be 5’1”), and I worry too much about her and how she will survive this world.

Rest assured there are many advantages to being a short female, believe me

Btw are you two living in Finland or somewhere else ? Congratulations anyway I think it's awesome you both found love on the forum.

[2Birds1Stone]

Smith & Wesson. The Texas WayTM

Literally had this thought as I finished reading B&G's post....

Sounds like an exciting new chapter in both your lives.

[mooretrees]

GIRLLLLLL!!!!! What fantastic news!! Just imagine me in my tiny kitchen jumping up and down screaming!!!! I do feel like I played a small roll in this awesome life event. I can’t wait to hear more about your lives together, best of luck!

[Biscuits and Gravy]

"Gettin' nowhere, I'm tired of thinkin', guess I'll do a little wishful drinkin'" - Brooks & Dunn

I wrangled the kids to the car on Monday morning, snapped them into their car seats as they bickered about who would get to wear the fluffy shark sweater, closed all the doors, adjusted the pile of backpacks in the passenger seat, then hit the ignition. Nothing. Dead battery. I called my ex-husband so he could take the kids to school, and as we transferred kids and backpacks between cars he offered to come back that afternoon and jump my car for me.

And he did. And while he was adjusting cables I thought about how he's a good guy, and how he prides himself on being a good guy, and how utterly incongruent some of his past actions have been with that narrative. Because we're human, and we're capable of the greatest evil and the greatest good. The universe exists within us--this swirling vortex of ALL--and somehow we've trained our meat organs and meat mouths to filter, to show others what we want them to see of us and to show ourselves only how we want to see ourselves. It's narratives and cognitive biases and justifications all the way down, and maybe that's just our brain protecting us from the knowledge that light cannot exist without darkness.
_______

Suo legally subsumed me and now I'm officially his property, aka, we eloped. When I saw the pictures, our genuine, huge smiles blew me away. It's good. I've always envied people who live their lives in absolutes, because I seem to have some lenses made only for the gray, but I have found an absolute! I absolutely love that man and it will be a privilege to enjoy and endure these next 40 years together. I do feel sadness and loss at not having been his first wife (and a time-machine solution is, sadly, mooted by numerous factors: (1) our age disparity; (2) the knowledge that he wouldn't be who he is today without his last 20 years; and (3) my desire not to erase my newly-minted step-kids from existence). I feel sad that I'll never get to have his children, or witness first-hand him making those leaps of growth we all make in our 20s and 30s. I didn't get to share his bed and his joy and his despair as he aged out of boyishness and into his grizzled old man self. And that's okay, it just is, and probably most second wives feel this way. He is a wonderful man and an equally wonderful partner and I am confident there will be more light than darkness in our union. I love you, handsome.
_______

Houston had over a month of 100+ degree, sunny weather and it was fucking brutal. The drop to the 90s this week cracked the seal on the SAD bell jar that had settled around me beginning in July. These summers are horrendous; the only thing to do is to survive them. There is no thriving. When the mercury drops, it's like I suddenly wake up and I've got a belly and a recycling can full of empty booze bottles, and I am not who I want to be. Healthy choices beget healthy choices and all that and since the depression has snapped I can finally get back on the horse. It is clear to me that I shouldn't be in Houston for the summers and this is not the city in which to hang my hat up indefinitely. Plans are in motion to abscond with the kids to the NE for the better part of the summer next year. My boss will just have to deal.
_______

Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone!

@chenda Good! I'm glad there can be positives for the short ladies. I just worry too much about baby girl. She is crazy strong-willed though, and that will probably serve her well, even though it's going to be a nightmare raising her. All y'all pour one out for Suo for agreeing to be this girl's step dad. As for where we live, I live in Houston full-time and Suo lives here half-time. Don't tease me with Finland! Once my kids are grown and gone or Houston is inevitably wiped out by a hurricane, whichever comes first, we'll obviously flee elsewhere.

@Laura Ingalls No, sadly we didn't do RAGBRAI this year. It was overly-optimistic of me to think I could train for it with everything else going on. Maybe next year!

[AxelHeyst]

I often don't post in your journal because it feels like scrawling the semantic equivalent of crayon "!!!'s and yellow highlighting in the margins of some sacred and important volume. Congratulations on the elopement and thank you for the way you share your thoughts here.

[mathiverse]

Congratulations!

[suomalainen]

Legal subsumption? I guess we should start a joint account here then. I propose ^^

[Biscuits and Gravy]

@Axel Dude, that is some high praise which I do not rightly deserve, but thank you. Also, ditto.

@mathiverse Thanks!

@Suo/DH Whoa now, let’s not get over-zealous in my subsumption. I get to keep my voice, otherwise what precisely are you subsuming? My ass-ets? And if you abandon your journal, then how will you progress to page 52, wherein you leave me for a younger woman? And what would our combined journal even be called? “Finnish Gravy”? Do y’all even have gravy?

[2Birds1Stone]

Whenever I see a joint FB account, the first question that pops into my head is, "who cheated on who?".

[suomalainen]

how will you progress to page 52, wherein you leave me for a younger woman?

Sounds exhausting. Unless it's my nursing home nurse. Although the whole J. Howard Marshall / Anna Nicole Smith thing is kinda gross. Coincidentally, I worked on that Supreme Court case during my internship - some sort of research probably. I forget.

And what would our combined journal even be called?

Sausage and Gravy. C'mon, woman. It was in the title!

[Western Red Cedar]

I actually think Finnish Gravy has a nice ring to it. Better than Lumpy Gravy.

Congrats to both of you! Wishing you many happy moments and memories in the years to come.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

This is gonna be a little Jack Kerouac-esque because the kids just nodded off and the cat is making biscuits on me and I drank a little because they played Legos and Magna-tiles all day and only required limited interference with the occasional barbed “stupid” but life is remarkable and as my son twitched and mumbled in my arms while falling asleep I panned out (like always) and they’re perfect and ordinary and doomed and it’s strange I can celebrate a shared meal of sweet potatoes and black beans while aware the good nutrition is merely a stopgap. And then we stop and consider the gap. Knead knead, purr purr, biscuits.

[anticonsumerist]

I wanted to congratulate you @gravy and @suo, your story here inspired me to try journaling here again!
wish you lots of love and happiness.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

“And every one is different, and every one's the same,
And this is just another way, of saying the same thing.”
- Randy Travis

I taught the kids the word “aggressive” today, which resulted in my 6 year old slinking around on the floor at bedtime, yelling, “I’m an aggressive caterpillar!” 20 minutes of rough-housing ensued (the caterpillars won by a landslide).

I dunno about kids. When I left for college at 18, my mom peace’d out of my life, basically until I had my first kid at 29. My dad peace’d out when I got my first real job at 24, and he hasn’t reengaged. As a kid/young adult, it hurt and I held it against them. As a parent, I get it. It’s not a lack of interest, like I originally believed; it’s plain old exhaustion. Parenting and childhood is a lose-lose game. It’s kind of a wonder that parents interact with their grown kids, and vice versa. The runway to adulthood is too long.

Stuff is good on the money front. My net take home is about $2,800/month, and I am Indiana-Jones-snatching-his-hat-from-under-a-door eking by on that. I stopped eating lunch out at work and started bringing oatmeal, nuts, and a banana instead. Work and kids are expensive; if I didn’t have either I bet I could live on $100/month. Or I’d just Into the Wild this shit and embrace sweet, sweet death. But, alas, past-Gravy made choices with which present-Gravy must contend.

Speaking of death, I came across this lovely analogy in The Trail by Ethan Gallogly:

Syd smiled awkwardly. “There’s a story I think about sometimes from Zen Buddhism—about a small wave, bobbing around and enjoying himself in the ocean. Then one day, he sees all the waves in front of him being dashed against the rocks on the shore. In a panic he cries out to a great wave nearby, This is awful, don’t you see? We’re all gonna be smashed into nothingness! The great wave chides him, It is you who do not see. You are not truly a wave, you are water. Your form may transform upon the rocks, but your existence is eternal.”

I sagely relayed this to my kids and they asked if they could have chocolate milk.

Marriage is terrific. I highly recommend being Suo’s wife.

@anticonsumerist Thanks! YMMV, for sure, but I’m glad you’re journaling.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

“[T]wo seemingly contradictory facts had to be simultaneously true. . . . For Darwin’s theory to work, heredity had to possess constancy and inconstancy, stability and mutation.” The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (emphasis in original).

DH requested a ride to the airport this morning. A frustrated woman demanded help understanding federal procedures and a coworker’s Finnegans Wake-esque draft on a chemical patent dispute required editing. My mom’s furniture needed moving and DD’s school had an announcement. The cat howled for food and DD forgot her library books.

I am independent, and I am dependent.

I feel grateful for the ability and opportunity to give and give and give. One day I may need to take, and that is okay.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

“You never ain't not around, yeah
Don't matter what time, what town
I can't get you gone…
A’int nobody sellin’ nothing you proof”
- Morgan Wallen

Had a rare weekend by my lonesome. House contains the vestiges of the young family’s chaos, but only one of the characters, who creeps, directionless. My husband is right; I’m lost without someone to love. So I work on loving myself. Cook myself naan and chana masala from scratch. Replace my single speed’s sagging bike chain and finish, breathlessly, a good novel. Chide the cat, scrub the toilets, set up a pain cave with a borrowed trainer and binge some TV. Clean the gutters and hang up the Christmas lights. Dig up three perfectly fine shrubs for my mom and replace them with three perfectly fine new plants, the rain pattering down, the shovel scraping weed guard, and my mom playing Chris Stapleton instead of Staind on her phone from the table on her back porch that used to be mine.

I sleep, with you, so well. I wake, doze, wake, with you, the cat hungry and restless, the sun elbowing through the curtains.

Tomorrow, I think, is a work day. How many more left. I’ll get the kids, feed them, chide them, cuddle them, put them to bed, and you are there, too.

On Gardening
I harvested a couple of okra, but that’s it. Squash vine borers decimated my zucchini (such beautiful bugs), and heat got the rest. Creeping cucumber grew wild in the kids’ secret garden and we enjoyed harvesting and eating it. I have broccoli now, but I’m not hopeful. My raised bed was too shallow and the sun exposure too direct, so I’ll modify the bed in the spring.

On Books
The books I remember reading this year: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams; Deep River by Karl Marlantes; Fairy Tale by Stephen King; Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell; The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy; Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy; Irreparable Harm by Melissa Miller; Fish Raincoats: A Woman Lawyer’s Life by Barbara Babcock; Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer; The Trail by Ethan Gallogly; The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee; The Sterile Cuckoo by John Nichols; Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens; Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.

Karl Marlantes was an unexpected diamond in the rough stumble. Matterhorn would be the one book, out of all of those, I would whole-heartedly recommend.

On Motherhood
My mom was not the mom I needed, and I fear the same for my daughter and me. If her personality sticks to this track, we’ll be wildly different women. I am thankful she has a stepmom and aunts and grandmothers and teachers at hand who may serve her better than I can. I will do my best, but I can’t be anyone other than myself, and that is probably not who she will need.

On Home
I took two trips this fall, one to the PNW and one to Austin. Neither were long. I found I was homesick for Houston, which was surprising, as I lead a fairly nomadic youth. Well, maybe it’s because of that nomadic youth. The PNW was gorgeous, and I remember saying I must live in the ugliest place on earth in comparison, but… fuck it felt good to come home to Houston. The devil ya know, maybe, but the feeling was noteworthy.